Of Apologies and histories: The past that sits uncomfortably

A year ago, this column dealt with the matter of Portugal having to (or not) apologize for the atrocities of the past committed in its sovereign name. This matter of apology keeps coming up from various quarters, whether it is in places where persons were abducted into the slave trade, to places where these persons wound up as slaves, or places where there is a belief that the national spirit was unconscionably violated by the actions of the colonial power. Goa is but one of those places.

The earlier column questioned the value of these politics of apology and this column will not get into those issues. The focus of this discussion will be the suggestion posed by a Goan living overseas, of a different kind of apology. This gentleman, Silviano Barbosa, suggests that the apology that is required is one that needs to be made by the dominant castes in Goa. Mr. Barbosa’s argument is that these social groups, who were in control of the Comunidades as gãocars, need to apologize, to those residents of Goa who were cast out of the comunidade system and rendered foreigners in their own land. Further, he argues that ‘The word "gaonkar" is not politically correct for the 95% of Goa's original population, who are offended and belittled by it, every time comunidade books or history buffs or someone else uses it.’

This is a very interesting argument and is deserving of more attention than that it has currently obtained. In any circumstance, those who argue for apologies from the colonial powers, would do well to be more rigorous in their demand for apologies and consolidate all these demands. It would be an interesting move, because it would acknowledge that while there was violence done by the colonizer, there was also violence done by dominant groups, towards marginalized groups within the territory that subsequently came to be known as Goa. It would amount to an acknowledgement that none of us are angels, persuading us to a different path to deal with the violence that permeates history and our contemporary social structure.

Mr. Barbosa is also the author of a novel, titled The Sixth Night. In this novel, Mr. Barbosa crafts a situation that underlines an argument that this column has often made; that while recognizing the problem with the brahmanical order, this does not render only Brahmins the ‘bad guys’. In his novel, it is a Chardo individual that asserts caste privilege and edges out a Shudra from her preferred location in the church. This is an important recognition to ensure not only that an agenda against Brahmanism does not turn into an agenda for Brahmin-hunting, but also to ensure that covert caste politics do not continue under the garb of anti-caste politics.

In his review of The Sixth Night, Ben Antão, another Goan novelist, articulated his own challenge to the brahmanical beliefs that structure our understanding of Goan identity, a challenge extracted here at some length;

‘To those who would go back to the pre-Portuguese era and take on Hindu names, I say think before you act….If you look at the history of Goa before the Portuguese conquest, you’d note that from 1469 this region called Goa was in Muslim hands; after the conquest in 1510 there were inter-marriages between Portuguese soldiers and Muslim women…. So we are now looking at a whole new generation of Catholic population with Muslim-blood antecedents. And yet a great many people in Goa today are brainwashed to believe that their ancestors before the Portuguese were Hindus! I guess Abdullah, Mohammed and Khan are not fashionable names!’

The reason these names are not fashionable among ‘Indianising’ Goans (or Indian Catholics along the west coast) is largely because of the Muslim antipathy built into the nature of brahmanically influenced Indian nationalism, as well as the ‘upper’ caste histories of those who wish to reclaim their past and settle comfortably within the power structures of post-colonial India. One should not excuse however, the European discomfort with the Islamicate that we in Goa have inherited in no small measure.

To return to the review by Mr. Antão though, we must recognize that the review was written in the year 2005, in the face of the flexing of the Hindutva muscle both in Goa and elsewhere. Mr. Antão’s review therefore, was not merely a literary review, but also the remarkably astute expression of a potential political project. The project argued that there was need for us to reframe our Goan (Catholic or otherwise) identity so that it did not walk straight into the Hindu nationalist trap that was setup even before Indian Independence. It is an argument that recognizes not only the value of diversity, but acknowledges the existence of such a history, that is all too often erased.

The untold side of this column is the self-doubt that often visits subsequent to articulating an idea. Is the column merely engaging in the Quixotic tilting at windmills, or does this speak to the daily experience of people. An affirmation of not being Quixotic (well not entirely Quixotic at any rate) was provided in a conversation subsequent to the Global Goans Convention. In a conversation with two sisters, and discussing the presentation of Dr. Sardessai, I mumbled angrily that we were always treated to the same old brahmanical representation of Goan history. Discussing genealogies, one of these two sisters commented, quite without prompting, that they were probably descended from the Muslims who lived in Goa, prior to the coming of the Portuguese. I stared at the woman google-eyed for a minute, until able to continue conversing. Her suggestion does not establish the fact of her Muslim antecedents, but it does indicate the possibility for Goans to actively re-imagine the past they have been persuaded into constructing. Interestingly, the fact that this lady did not come from the ‘gãocar’ wards of a village otherwise known for its snotty and insufferable dominant castes, suggests the ways in which non-dominant castes can imagine their pre-Christian past.

One does not even have to look for blood descent from Muslims however. Indeed, to do so would take us right back to the biological logics that form the basis for both race and caste. On the contrary, we can stress that we are culturally products of the time when the Islamicate idiom was commonly accepted as the idiom within which to articulate one's identity. Too often, the history of Goa has been written in a manner as to suggest that the Islamicate presence in the territory was a minor accident. On the contrary, the Islamicate was a strong presence within the Deccan and the Konkan before the territories that eventually constituted Goa were part of the Bijapuri Sultanate, and even after, even during the time of the early Portuguese sovereignty in Goa. This Islamicate presence ensured that dress codes, and modes of etiquette, were appropriately Arabic, Persian or Turkic inflected. There are other ways of measuring our ancestry, and blood is not necessarily the only, or even the most important one of them.

To return to Mr. Barbosa, his demand for an apology is also the articulation of a political agenda for Goa. While unaware of the nature of the apology that Mr. Barbosa is suggestion, one would imagine his demand is not merely for a formal apology, but for a structural change in the workings of Goan society. To this extent, this demand for an apology impacts fundamentally on the manner in which the movements to ‘save Goa’ have been operating. Demands for local self-governance are often subtly disguised demands for a return to the Comunidade system of yore. While the Comunidade system does offer the possibility for a holistic management of land, it is also couched in social inequalities that need to go if we are to revitalize and revive it. Mr. Barbosa’s suggestion of an apology, would work to constantly remind us to the inequalities we have to address, so that the Goan future is not built on the inequalities and the violences of the past.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 10 August 2011)

The Politics of Apologies: Portugal, Slavery and the Politics of the World Order

I get extremely agitated when Portuguese academics express the need to apologize for, and attempt to undo the damage done during the colonial period, especially that of the slave trade that was conducted in part by them. It is not that there is no need to recognize that this slave trade, and other heinous practices under colonialism took place. There is such a need. An example of this need for recognition is the rather disingenuous manner in which in the course of a competition searching for the 7 wonders of the Portuguese architectural world, the history of slavery linked to a number of Portuguese architectural marvels was omitted. But this recognition does not necessarily imply the need for an apology. Even if it does, the fact of apology carries its own baggage; baggage that can further complicate relations between the colonizer and the formerly colonized.

When Portugal apologizes for slavery, it does not do so on a blank slate. It does this on a slate that is already loaded with a large variety of meanings. For example, it is understood that slavery was the slavery of ‘black’ people. Further, it is understood that this slavery was conducted by ‘white’ people. Thus when we apologize for slavery, we apologize not only as Portuguese, but as ‘white’ people who did grievous injury to ‘black’ people. What this apology does therefore, is to re-inscribe race back into international relations. It makes some people (not all) from the African continent black, and the people in continental Europe white.

This easy equation between white and black is also deeply problematic because the historical situation is not so cut and dry. When Portugal engaged in slavery, it was not only white people who were conducting this trade. The trade flourished also because there were other groups from the African continent (‘black’ and otherwise) who participated in this trade. Not just those in the African continent though; the slave trade was profitable also for a number of Goan families, whose current fortunes are built in part by their participation in the slave trade. For the Portuguese to ignore this complexity and shoulder the entire blame for the slave trade is sweet, but it results in another patently colonial act. It casts the (‘white’) Portuguese as responsible and the others (‘Black’ and African) as not. Classic colonialism rested on the distinction between the all-knowing, responsible, adult White, and the child-like, irresponsible, coloured native.

None of this is to suggest that the Portuguese are wickedly manipulating statements to re-inscribe a racial dimension to post-colonial relations. On the contrary, the urge to apologize comes from the more conscientious segments of Portuguese society, who are appalled by attempts to forget or ignore the barbarities committed in colonial times. However what they fail to realize is that given that the postcolonial world is already configured by certain practices established by the dominant powers of the world, their apology only goes to further complicate and worsen postcolonial relations.

What might these practices established by dominant global players be? Take for example the fact that when we speak of slavery we very often only speak of and imagine slavery in the Atlantic Ocean circuit (i.e. toward the Americas). The slave trade in the Indian Ocean is completely erased. Further it is imagined that only Africans were enslaved. Historians of Goa will know that there was also a slave trade in Chinese and peoples from the Far East. And yet one but rarely hears of this trade.

The reason for this bias is owing to the Anglo-American leadership of the debate. This stress leads to the whole imaginary that is created particularly for the US based Afro-American, that the continent of Africa is ‘Home’. There is the specific imagination of these Afro-descendants in the Americas as the African ‘Diaspora’. Some time ago, in the sixties and the seventies, the whole idea of a return to Africa, that was quite fashionable among Afro-American activists. The experiences of those who ‘returned’ were disastrous. The idea however still has some resonance. This longevity can be explained by the similarity of this construction with other racist and nationalist imaginations. It feeds from and in turn supports the whole idea of the State of Israel and the right of Jews to return to a land (that is imagined as originally being theirs). It buttresses the whole idea of Muslims in India being invaders and hence eternal outsiders to the country. The slave discourse that the Portuguese unwittingly enter into when they wish to apologize is loaded with such ideas. And to be sure, there would be some in Portugal, who would like to see Portugal as a ‘white’ space, with the Blacks knowing for sure that Africa is their space, to which they are more than welcome to return to.

As I stated before, there is a need for us to not ignore or forget the cruelties of colonialism. However this whole business of apologies seems to generate as many problems as it does benefits. For one it is similar to the whole idea of righting historical wrongs. When one tries to do that, one invariably gets into a larger mess than one started with in the first place. Have a look at the wars in the Balkans, the Basque demand, the Hindutva demand. Secondly, the apologies generate as indicated above a whole new system of relations between peoples and countries. The recognition of culpability generates the demand by African (and other Third World countries) for Western developmental aid. Once again, though we recognize that Western European and Northern American wealth is built on colonial exploitation, we should recognize that the demand for aid is not so innocent. It is the demand not of the masses of people of the African and Asian nations, but of their elites. The developmental aid that comes in on the backs of the recognition of responsibility is used to cushion these elites, and to push projects that invariably hurt the poor and the marginal of these countries. Finally, the politics of apologies push certain populations in the formerly colonized spaces into tight (and dangerous) corners. In the context where some segments blame Goan Catholics for the real and imagined attacks on Hindus during the pre-Republican Portuguese regime, does this politics of apology not further condemn the Goan Catholic?

The field of postcolonial relations is a mine-field. In the case of Portugal, which does not share the history of dominant world powers, the field is even more fraught with dangers. A case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There are for sure however, ways in which we can recognize the sorrows of the past, not ignore them, and then go on to build relations that do not depend on apologies, especially when they involve the creation of further complications in our already troubled world. This route involves recognition of the combination of local and overseas elites in colonial domination. The route involves a refusal to allow any actions that would reinscribe racism and clientalism of formerly colonized States into international relations. The route involves getting on with our lives and not getting caught up in nationalist politics.

(Published in the Gomantak Times, 14 Oct 2009)